Auxiliary liver transplantation Auxiliary liver transplantation is used to treat patients with acute liver failure.Auxiliary liver transplantation is the implantation of a right or left hemiliver into the abdominal cavity to recover the functioning of a diseased liver. The donor liver remains intact until the diseased liver recovers. We can remove the donor only after recovery of patient without damaging his(donor) organs . Auxiliary liver transplantation can be done basically by two methods 1) Heterotopic auxiliary transplantation 2) Auxiliary partial liver transplantation.
Heterotopic auxiliary transplantation Heterotopic auxiliary transplantation is easier to perform but implantation of the donor onto the infrahepatic vena cava may induce venous outflow obstruction, which may lead to slower recovery or working of liver, probably due to cytokine release from residual necrotic liver tissue. This method is also dangerous for donor also a minor mistake during implantation may damage his liver also. In this way heterotopic auxiliary transplantation is more dangerous compared with auxiliary partial. Success rate of this method is around 63%.
Auxiliary partial liver transplantation Auxiliary partial liver transplantation is done on the patient whose liver is almost at complete failure stage. These patient have only limited options like timely recovery of the diseased liver with medical management, or liver transplantation. In this method the surgeons remove the part of the failing liver and attach a partial donor liver to it. The donor liver supports the patient during recovery, cleaning toxins and preventing brain injury. Most of the patient recover with the help of donor. Although partial liver transplantation is mostly used on children because of the regenerative capacity of their liver. This method is a huge success in field of liver transplantation.
Procedure and cautions In both methods two team works simultaneously A) A donor team which procures and splits the donor B) A recipient team which fits up the recipient abdominal cavity and performs the transplantation